00:00.00 David Howe Um, back to episode one five 3 of a life neuro podcast I'm your host David Howe I'm here with Conor John and our friends with community connections. We were just talking about the really cool archaeology and the drone you found it. Red rocks. But what are some like future projects. You guys have coming up or things you're looking forward to. 00:13.37 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah. 00:18.48 Jessica Ericson We are so looking forward to international archeology day. It is on October Twenty first from nine a m to 2 pm we'll be in the southern lot of the ah red rocks park. Um. Yeah, because we had done a bunch of work this last year at red rocks we were speaking with the park director. Um oh she's the director of Denver Mountain Parks but 00:47.20 Jasmine Saxon Denver mount. 00:48.53 Jessica Ericson Yeah, she she was. She's so enthusiastic loves this whole project. She wants people to like fall in love with archeology just like we all have and so she was hoping to have some sort of like bigger public component and so when we brought um through a random series of events we Jasmine and I were approached. To take over international archaeology day which has been going on for the past eleven years and it kind of just fit perfectly into what we're all about so we told Shannon about that and then it just kind of started taking but like it's a life of its own. So it's been really, really fun so far. But. Yeah I don't know Chas. But if you want to add more to that. But yeah. 01:31.19 Jasmine Saxon Yeah, oh my god it's been a monster but it's been my favorite. Um, so rocksboro state park originally started international archeology day like kind of here in Colorado like metro Denver south I don't know it's not really metro Denver it's but anyway. 01:35.15 Jessica Ericson Is um. 01:46.49 alifeinruins Then. 01:47.92 Jessica Ericson It's bad. So yeah. 01:48.34 Jasmine Saxon Um, it's kind of um but they started it with their volunteers and it was just kind of a small like park driven event and it just continued to grow like year after year after year until it just it outgrew rocksborough and they had to find another venue to host it. Um, it got like I think before the pandemic they had like up to 800 people attending. Um, which is like a lot I actually didn't realize how big it was until I started getting into all the numbers for the grants that we applied for so um, but um. 02:11.53 alifeinruins Something a lot. Yeah. 02:18.92 Jessica Ericson Um, me Red eyes. 02:22.85 Jasmine Saxon Last year we were approached um by someone on the ied committee seeing if we were interested maybe and and taking over the event because the original organizers were retiring from their park positions and just didn't like really want to take this on anymore. They had been doing it for 10 years um, wanted to do some stuff of their own in their older age and so again, as just said this fits perfectly into our mission of spreading archeology and educational outreach like to the community and so last year we spent the majority of the time just sitting on the id committee id international archaeology day. 02:40.93 Jessica Ericson Um. 02:59.58 Jasmine Saxon Committee ah learning all the ins and outs of what goes into organizing this event and it's ah it's a pretty massive event. Um, last year there were over 22 different organizations all with tables and booths. 03:06.17 Jessica Ericson Um, it's beastly. 03:14.28 Jasmine Saxon Set up where you could just walk through and learn all about different kinds of archaeology projects. Um different. They also had like really cool stuff like um lithophones set up that you could like play and they had um, something on the fur trade. Ah there was. 03:27.30 Jessica Ericson Um, footnapping. Yeah. 03:31.38 Jasmine Saxon Like the history Colorado was there with some cool activities for kids. So. It's just like it's a really cool vibe. Um, and so just and I decided to take this on. Um, and since we're pretty small and still like newly growing. We partnered with Colorado Preservation Inc which is a nonprofit and ah they applied for a grant in partnership with us to run and host international archeology day at red rockx park and amphitheaters so we're like super thrilled we think it's just going to be the coolest projects ever to continue growing. 04:02.24 Jessica Ericson As. 04:07.39 Jasmine Saxon Um, we have a lot of really amazing partners and collaborators. But we're always looking for more It's international. So we're really trying to grow the diversity part of this event. Um, so I think I had mentioned earlier that like I had studied like israeli archeology and I still have great connections over there and so. We're pulling in that connection. We're going to have some um mesoamerica archeology. Um I'm also on the board of shruger rant which is like a pretty cool historic resource down south and it's austrian so they're going to show up um and talk about some ah austrian culture. And then we're doing our best to include as many people as we can from the bipoc community so looking at indigenous black asian ah Mexican Chicano like all of these other types of um partners that a lot of times are just on the fringes and get left out and so we're. 04:58.83 Jessica Ericson You. 05:01.12 Jasmine Saxon Jess and I are doing our bus to kind of reinvent this so that it becomes more inclusive and um the organizers have done just an ah amazing job at building this and we really believe in the work that they're doing so we're just going to try to grow it. 05:11.16 Jessica Ericson Have small. 05:16.65 Jasmine Saxon Bigger and have it at red rocks and we want to um justs and I are doing kind of like 1 of festival vibes. So we're going to do like we're gonna have like yeah we're going to have a stage for speaker and we're going to have um a food truck and a little mini beer garden. It's going to be. It's going to be pretty sweet if I say so is so. 05:24.78 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah, we're going to stage. 05:33.74 Jessica Ericson 1 1 of the food trucks actually is ah an apache sibling pair. So there's they have their own food truck that they take around mostly coloradoer springs but sometimes Denver and whatnot and we've got. Ah, members of the Northern Arapaho they're going to do a tp demonstration and all sorts of stuff. So ah yeah, hopefully everybody can make it. It's going to be so fun. Yes, piece of love. 05:55.33 alifeinruins You had me at Festival vibes. Yeah, recent was it peace. 05:57.50 Jasmine Saxon Um, yeah, yeah, we're gonna we're like creating a we're gonna have like a little photo booth. It's gonna be like a banner of like the I like logo or like. So every year we have an artist draw something um some artwork and we've been working with Elena Haverook who just does a maze beautiful beautiful illustrations um but she has been drawing like scenes from like red rocks and stuff and so we're going to like do a big. 06:21.37 Jessica Ericson Um. 06:30.61 Jasmine Saxon Banner with like some cool red rocks art on it and you can like take your picture of the id banner. It's going to be so cool. Oh my gosh I'm such a nerd. What's going to be awesome. 06:41.96 Jessica Ericson Um. 06:43.61 David Howe I I Just realized I've been oh a bed I just thought it was muted this whole time. My bed you go. 06:43.70 alifeinruins But that's super cool I'm glad I love I Love the good now I Love I Love the enthusiasm. It's I'm excited for it. Um, you know. 06:50.13 Jessica Ericson Um, oh no. 06:55.23 Jessica Ericson Okay. 06:58.33 David Howe Elaine is a ah good friend of mine. She's she's really talented. She probably get her on the show at some point. Um, yeah. 07:01.00 Jessica Ericson You should definitely. 07:01.27 Jasmine Saxon Yeah, she's awesome I was just wearing her shirt that she designs the like yesterday with the points on it. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, ah in addition to like some of those like bigger projects that we have. We also like. 07:10.84 David Howe Yeah. 07:11.82 Jessica Ericson Um, oh yes. 07:20.25 Jasmine Saxon Think I mentioned earlier do some work with nonprofits just you want to share kind of with one of our most recent projects I think it's so cool. It's one of my favorite things so far. 07:30.17 Jessica Ericson Yeah, so connor you had mentioned um the enthusiasm and like passion that the smaller communities have we were approached by Jaye and a woman named sendda from the lakewood historical society. And they are there. They are so passionate and so knowledgeable about what they have and apparently in the next probably year or so there's going to be a big push in Denver to begin 0 escaping and getting rid of the different um like. Lawns and yards that take up a lot of water we're trying to like they're trying to get to minimize that basically and so Senda realized that by doing this a lot of yards are going to be torn up so that's very unfortunate. Um, if. If if people find things like artifacts or whatever like they're not going to know what they're finding so they'll probably just toss it away so the liquid historical society came to us to be like hey can you help us create something to get people to know what archaeology is know what it looks like in this area and then like just. We can kind of start like a database or something like that. So it all formed into this whole thing. Um, and now it's called the ah guardians of I always must this name of because I always want to say guardians of a galaxy but but it's it's just as epic like it's so fun. So it's. 08:59.22 Jessica Ericson The liquid historic which Ja tell me what it is I was messed up. 09:01.80 alifeinruins But. 09:03.86 Jasmine Saxon Okay, it's it's ah guardians of historic lakewood. Yeah. 09:08.77 Jessica Ericson Thank you? Yes, guardians of historic liquid. So anyways, we're creating a pamphlet. We're going to have like chat with an archeologist's days. People are going to fill out forms um of not extensive forms but just like what did you find is it metal is it glass. Yeah. 09:10.94 David Howe Are. 09:24.20 Jasmine Saxon Like a Google form. Basically yeah, like yeah to help track data. So yeah, so Justin and I are going to create a handbook like a citizen archeology handbook. Um, that'll be digital and so anyone that wants to sign up for the guardians of historic lakewood program. 09:26.48 Jessica Ericson Something Nice and simple. Yeah. Yeah. 09:41.56 Jasmine Saxon Get a handbook and it'll have like really basic information in there like like if you find this this is a nail like this is a you know this is window paying glass. It's flat. You know like some you know, just really basic things but things that you would find like around a household. 09:47.65 Jessica Ericson Um, yes, yeah, this is flies. 09:50.57 David Howe Um, yeah. 09:57.76 Jasmine Saxon Um, and have pictures and descriptions and stuff in there so people can use that to kind of identify what they have and then that will direct them to like the Google forum on lakewood on the historical study website where they can like log their information and what they found and then. Historical society is going to take that information and do some really cool projects with it like creating story maps and talking about where certain things happened and how we can tell from you know these artifacts or you know we'll we'll see what happens when people start. Actually you know submitting their data but um, it really empowers people to take care. These items rather than um, just like stashing them somewhere or just throwing them out. It gives them like meaning and they know what to do with it. Um, and I think that's really important so again like that educational component of empowering just. 10:37.24 David Howe Yeah. 10:37.49 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah. 10:49.45 Jasmine Saxon Mr. Joe across the street to be like you can be an archeologist. Yeah could be like I bad archaeologist di and it all empowers us to continue protecting our history and to be actively recording that history too because a lot of times. Um. 10:51.71 Jessica Ericson Are with me. 10:56.66 David Howe Ah, yeah. 11:08.81 Jasmine Saxon Like that private his as we know as archeologists we don't know a lot of intimate details unless there's like a diary or there's like an outhouse or you know you know there's like a privy. Um, we don't get a lot of like intimate details of how people were living and so I think this is a really cool approach to capturing some of that intimate data that would otherwise just be. 11:18.84 Jessica Ericson Um, the internet I. 11:28.19 Jasmine Saxon Gone. Um, there's just no other. There's no reason that you know hire an archaeologist to come to your backyard. Um, but if you empower citizens to know what they're finding and to be able to report that and and tell somebody about it then like we can really start talking about some cool stuff I think. 11:32.75 David Howe I. 11:46.80 Jasmine Saxon Um, just even from a like a research perspective. 11:50.50 Jessica Ericson Yeah, Also Ah sorry just to add the butterfly pavilion showed a lot of interest in this project as well. So they're probably going to give information as well to when people are told please you know rearrange your Yard. Um. Butterfly pavilion is going to be like well if you want to help the environment here are some local plants that help pollinators and all that kind of stuff so it'll be a nice guide for the community to really understand what is happening around them. Yeah. 12:22.29 Jasmine Saxon Yeah, yeah, and mixing like archeology and environment is like so great I Love it. 12:23.51 David Howe Good. 12:28.40 alifeinruins Yeah, absolutely. 12:32.63 David Howe Okay, it just the ah like the fact that you guys are talking with people in the community about like what the Google form is left to like I've just found a lot of people have no idea what to start with that like oh I found an artifact who do there's no like 9 1 1 for an archeologist. So like they just. Put it in a coffee can and put it on it like somewhere. But if you say like hey like an archaeologist came and looked there like the school knows about this like artifact we have makes it even cooler to them too. So I I like that a lot. 12:53.75 Jessica Ericson Um, the. 13:01.55 Jessica Ericson Yeah, okay. 13:04.88 Jasmine Saxon Yeah,, we're excited to see where it goes and how it starts I Imagine it's like a little snowball right now right? and then like once people like know that it's available and like latch onto it. It's just like going to grow and grow and grow and what's cool about this is a historical society is really um. Really into sharing this like duplicating this for other historical societies. So They're not like gatekeeping or like trying to like make it just their own thing like they want to share this program and have it duplicated like throughout different historical societies around the state. Or even abroad and so I think like that's a really cool way of envisioning like how do we continue to connect people together on a broader scale. 13:47.49 alifeinruins No, that's that's super cool. Um I think it's we're going to have a lot more archeologists on our hands if this keeps going the way it seems like it's going which is awesome I Think that's we should all learn to love and respect and try to understand the past. Yeah. 13:53.34 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah. 14:01.80 David Howe Um, yeah. 14:04.78 alifeinruins And and it seems like in other other disciplines The Citizen Science approach works like it always seems to work and benefits the community. So I'm glad that you guys are taking that kind of approach. It's going to be cool. 14:16.57 Jessica Ericson Thank you! We're excited. 14:19.60 Jasmine Saxon Um, yeah, thanks. 14:21.13 David Howe Um I Guess do you have any like closing remarks on what you want to do with it or like but anything you're proud of about the bunch of community connections anything want to let the world know. 14:36.33 Jasmine Saxon Ah. 14:36.76 Jessica Ericson Um I guess just like archeology matters and science matters and the more you know the better off, you'll be so if you ever have any questions Just let us know and. Yeah I'm sure there's plenty more to say but has been. 14:53.79 Jasmine Saxon Yeah I think I think what's really I think through all this learning and growing and building a business and being a field archeologist and like running my body into the ground and trying to figure out why the heck why do I Even want to do archeology. 15:08.14 Jessica Ericson 9 15:09.94 Jasmine Saxon Um, because there are those moments when you question yourself like did I really pick the right profession. Um I think what I've learned is that one archeology is absolutely viable and it's a profession that we really do need and we have just. 15:13.39 David Howe Every day. Yes, yeah. 15:14.36 alifeinruins Everybody. 15:17.40 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah. 15:28.84 Jasmine Saxon Made it 1 thing and it is not just 1 thing. There's so many other things that go into doing archeology and really doing it well um, but the other thing I think too is that and this is really sorry my dog um the the other thing. 15:44.60 Jessica Ericson Um. 15:47.54 Jasmine Saxon Number 2 that is really important. Ah, most important is that people matter and that is why we do this is because people are the most valuable resource that we have and documenting them and what they've done in the past is a privilege and it's an honor and I think that that is the thing that I want to. 16:06.12 Jessica Ericson Yeah. 16:06.35 Jasmine Saxon And want to tell everybody listening that you know this is this is serious work and we're doing the best we can to make it applicable for everybody. So yeah. 16:15.83 David Howe Um, awesome. Yeah. 16:15.95 Jessica Ericson Um, can. 16:16.71 alifeinruins That's beautiful. Um, so before we um, we end the show. We usually ask the folks we have on to if you have any recommendations for books Articles Videos apps. You know anything you would recommend for people who are interested in Public archeology. 16:34.14 Jasmine Saxon Yeah, um, one book I read is called archeology and community service learning. Um, it's edited I don't know if I'll say this guy's name right? But it's Michael S Nas and a and a Ss a and Ey and Mary Anne Levine um and again it it. It provides a lot of examples of community archeology and public archeology. But it also talks about some of the strategy behind why they did the project that they did and how they did it and why they did it the way that they did. So I think that's really helpful to learn kind of like. Behind the scenes of public archeology and that there really is a lot of work and effort that goes into curating these experiences you can't just like slap it together. It's like it's a process. Um, so I think that was something I think that really has helped me in my journey and understanding like how to work with the community especially using archeology. 17:27.90 David Howe Um, yeah. 17:29.39 Jessica Ericson Yeah I've got um so the book that Connor and I one of the books that we had to read in class I did pull that up. So I think it was it was beneficial for sure. It's the ethical issues in archeology. Um, and it's just kind of a culmination of a bunch of people's work comes. Coming together but it just teaches you and gives you different perspectives of how to how and why to work with the public and in different aspects and whatnot. But also um, if someone's interested in public archeology. Definitely go to if you can go to like conferences and such because the more people you know the better and it'll just help to expand maybe what you're looking to do with public archeology and all of that. But yeah, yeah. 18:21.10 Jasmine Saxon Or your local archeology society like here we have Colorado archaeological society cast. Um, the resources like that are amazing to get you connected into archaeology and it gives you also that community perspective too because those organizations are community-driven. Um, so it gives you that inside view. So yeah, think that's a good suggestion. Just good idea. 18:37.90 David Howe Um, ah, cool where ah where can the listeners find you guys on social media or about your your ah business. 18:40.45 Jessica Ericson Um, no. 18:49.80 Jasmine Saxon You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at community connections lllc and then also our website communityconnections biz which we're talking about artifacts so we built a resource called the artifact identifier. And it's all about if you find something while you're out like what do you do with it and who do you tell? So um, that is also a free resource on our website and you can go there. It's like right on the front page and you can download it for free and pop it on your mobile. So when you're Hiking. You know what to do. 19:21.39 David Howe Cool. That's an excellent resource. 19:21.39 Jessica Ericson Um, yeah, totally. 19:26.23 alifeinruins Awesome! Um, because this is a live ruins podcast. We do have to ask you a very important question which I think I know the answer for because you you both are very passionate about the past. Um, if you were given the opportunity to kind of do this all over would you still. 19:34.16 Jessica Ericson Are. 19:40.29 alifeinruins Kind of choose to live a life in ruins. 19:42.41 Jasmine Saxon Yeah, higher percent. 19:45.39 Jessica Ericson Ah, that is yeah, definitely. 19:46.67 David Howe Good. 19:47.64 alifeinruins Ah, ah, awesome. Ah, we just so we just interviewed um Jessica Ericson and Jasmine Saxon is that right? Yeah, um, um, you can find them. Ah the show notes will have ah their website their handles Instagram etc. Um, yeah. 19:53.42 Jasmine Saxon Yes. 20:03.56 David Howe And yeah, can you guys just please rate review the podcast I'm not even going to go into it. It just just rate review the podcast and hit the stars or whatever you know how to do it share it with a friend lambas us on Reddit whatever you want to do? um, cool. 20:05.33 alifeinruins And David you have our our ploy to rate review the podcast. 20:13.91 Jessica Ericson Um, do it. 20:22.18 David Howe All right? Well um, yeah, thanks for coming on. Yeah, and as we close the show Connor do you have your witty stupid joke. 20:24.54 Jessica Ericson Thanks for having us. 20:25.25 Jasmine Saxon Thanks for having us. It was great. 20:27.30 alifeinruins Again. 20:37.65 alifeinruins Stupid. Ah yeah I do um so I changed all my passwords to Kenny. 20:39.86 David Howe I don't remember what we call I think Chris kind of that shitty joke is usually what we say but I don't want to curse if they they want to put the sword. 20:39.94 Jessica Ericson Um. 20:53.40 alifeinruins Now I have all Kenny logins. 20:54.44 David Howe Of see what I mean. 20:56.83 Jasmine Saxon Ah. 20:58.56 Jessica Ericson Oh God That's great. 20:59.31 alifeinruins Ah, that grown is what I live for. That's what I look for? oh I read get we we are oh. 21:03.17 Jasmine Saxon Um, hurrah. 21:05.37 David Howe Ah, all right? Well yeah, see you guys next week 21:07.32 Jessica Ericson Um, oh yeah, sounds good.